This Journeys’ entry originally appeared as a post on Forum 5, and has been printed here with Marsha's permission

So I will share a few insights, nothing really new but just to support the forum and I believe to free my self up more of any m residue. Also because i will feel less like a voyeur. The beginning of my extrication really began after a year and a half of being the servant of the servant’s in Miami Beach. (I had previously lived in Portand and Eugene - hi carol) Semi-close. Some fun, lots of laughs, tons of work, no recognition and burn-out ...plus guilt cause i was sneaking into mikes room everynight... second hand Darshan experience you know!

I lived amonst a circle of exhausted, fearfull and confused young people, very sincere but way to stressed to be conscious of anyone but themselves and getting some form of attention from m. The exclusion game was a big one for me. not being invited to parties-trying to get a glimpse, to feel special. (how embarrassingly pathetic, but certainly socially acceptable in this circle, even encouraged.) After a few years of therapy, unraveling and relaxation, those years seem crazy and also perhaps normal for adocesents who lived through the 60's where all our heros were killed and nixon became pres.

It’s my observation that m fit perfectly into my family scenerio. My dad was not around much , he did not know how to connect with me, he was at times mean and violent. M was the same, not a very nice boy, did not seem to know how to connect (even as he became a young adult) he often seemed to be entertained by others' misery, and was abusive (verbally abusive, and even physically... I remember when Mike blissfully recounted how M kicked him in the balls.)

There were 2 incidences that i would like to convey that cracked my tightly wound belief system around m and k.

first one: I was finally invited to become an instructor, part time in 85-86. M had basically totally ignored me up until this conference, i was living with mike donner and I kept finding myself in situations where i was treated like i didn't exist and it was not a spiritual experience. It was like I did not exisit. I was gaining enough sense of self at that point to realize that i perhaps deserved a bit of respect. duh! Well at the conference I had a very strange experience. m felt like we need a k review so Loring baker was going to teach us how to do the techniques.

But I thought ... what.. are you kidding me, I have been faithfully doing this thing for 12 years or so and i even had 2 or 3 significant experiences. I know how to do this simple thing. well i think (rationaliztion covering up discomfort at questioning m) maybe there is something new, something that will really give me a great meditation.

So here comes Loring whom i know, he looks at me with these snakey blank eyes and says in a monotone voice "put the pads of your thumbs here", etc. It was absolutely the same thing i had been doing day after day for years. I suddenly felt weird and tried to connect with him. I said, "loring i know how to do this (nervous giggle) your kidding... right."...and then he restates exactly what he had just said .. "put the pads of your thumbs here", etc.

he was so cold, like a robot. well i felt punched in the stomach. Again that feeling of hey where is the respect for me, i am not stupid, i have been loyal for years, this is not what k is all about, putting thumbs in your ears just right? Where is the connection. I began to unravel right then and there. I talked to others but they kind of had the same snakey look except for the cynics like Mike and his buddies who were used to this stuff.

But i think i was beginning to see how i acted to others when they had doubts or were in their mind and it was not right. It felt cold. Funny little thing that became huge for me. I quit the instructor scene the day i got the call that i could be one. How we happen to unravel is so unique to each of us. for me I began to really see m’s flaws and I began to allow myself to feel the feelings of hurt, disgust, loss. I guess i could go on and on but it seems everyone will see what is important for them as they individuate, as the system failsthem. It is quite an amazing process. it can be scary. but oh so worth it.

Grief struck me hard. i cried for a long time. Michael was on the edge also but this was a rites of passage for me, I had to do it alone. Our culture is not good at this sort of thing, honoring grief, so there was no room for me in the premie world. It was like being shunned, who would I talk to, cry to, as I told my revelation that m was a man and not a very nice one at that. It was a tough time for both of us. We did not do the break in a very conscious manner, it was strange for a few years.

So good job Forum. Please do consider a counseling site. I made it and i have appreciation for my resiliency and a trust to make choices that will further my opening to compassion and wisdom. It is a natural human process of growing up and i feel very tender towards all who are or have embarked on this journey.

The other incident that deeply affected me was in regards to a friend that disclosed how she felt greatly harmed by m. I would say that she felt raped, I will say that i felt it was close to rape and if it felt that horrible then it was. i will also say it was not violent physically but mentally and emotionally it was. I will also say that it was power over someone, a clear abuse of power from one who is narssisstic to extremes over one who felt powerless.

I will not write any details or answer questions regarding this incident because it is not my story, Only the effect it had on me. I felt a real sense of helplessness after i heard her story, of her abuse and then her long road to recovery. I told all the premies i could about it. i wonder what premies do to justify this kind of behavior in someone they profess to love. Any excuse i gave to m because of his lousy upbringing or that he was just a kid .or the sex, power, guru trip, whatever, could no longer be justified. Abuse (sexual/psychological/emotional) is not ok with me.

I feel anger, now when i imagine the pain of this woman, and i feel responsible to encourage those who hear this reality check regarding m that they disengage and stop supporting him. he does not practice what he preaches. H e is an energy suck. The sooner he has no devotees the sooner he will no longer be guru. Of course there are many accounts of his weak character. It would be a better road to recovery for him if his premies really let him go.

Thankyou again and namaste.

A while later, I was walking in Golden Gate Park during a bad acid trip when I found a flyer about Maharaj Ji. I grabbed it and read it avidly. It said there would be a talk at a certain place in the near future. Needless to say, I went and brought a lot of other commune members with me.

I didn't receive the knowledge at that time because I objected to bowing down to Maharaj Ji's image before I verified for myself that he could give the "knowledge of god." I didn't see why I couldn't bow after I received the knowledge. Anyway, I changed my mind later on and ended up receiving the knowledge in New York.

My experiences were of an on again and off again nature after that. I would zealously follow the knowledge and go to satsang and meditate and all that. Then, I would turn off to it. I did notice a change in my spiritual state after I received the knowledge. I seemed to have passed a barrier that I had been stuck behind. But I went back to the commune and the drugs and didn't meditate. But I still felt spiritually a lot higher than before.

I moved to a commune in the country and, while I was there, I heard about a gathering in India which Maharaj Ji's followers could go to for a mere $300. I looked at it primarily as a cheap way to travel but, as I prepared for the trip, I began regularly attending satsang and meditating and I really got into it.

India was pretty traumatic for me. The sexism of women having to have male escorts to leave the commune really bothred me. The premies bothered me too. They seemed obsessed with finding fault with each other. It was always, "Sister, isn't that dress too low cut?" Always, "Sister" this or "Sister" that. I also noticed a tendency of everyone to become really closed up in hirself because if we have acted real, people might know we weren't as spiritually high as we were pretending to be.

Anyway, I did have periods of being a really zealous premie and doing service, satsang and meditation but at the end of my stay in India, I was fed up again. I returned happily to my parents' house where I enjoyed the material things I had been deprived of (and which I realized I was still attached to). But I started remembering how I had felt before I went to India and how high practicing the knowledge had gotten me so I again went back to it.

This time, I got in deeper than before. I moved into a Premie House. At the end of the month, everyone in that house had joined an ashram. I joined a teaching ashram in Colorado. We were going to build the perfect school. I was very happy there at first.

But, as part of our work, we studied various educational systems and our studies made me think. The more I thought, the more contradictions I found. It seemed the speakers we invited to tell us about their educational philosophies had more on the ball than Bhagwan Ji who came and gave us his ideas which sounded really trite. And I also became increasingly bothered by the way nobody ever wanted to be real but always had to act upbeat all the time. I tried being myself as an experiment and the results from the others were not positive.

Anyway, I reached a point where I knew that life was precious and a moment of freedom was better than a lifetime in a group where I wasn't allowed to be myself. So it ended positively for me. Leaving the ashram was just a detail which I managed to work out.

Here I am. I am free. And damned grateful to be, too.

Grace
Dear ex-premies,

Thank you for your candid and sincere contributions to this site. Having spent the latter part of yesterday thoroughly absorbed in the associations I could identity with in my own life, I decided to make my own contribution. As far as I am concerned the word "GIFT" has no strings attached whatsoever. Maharaji's gift has many strings attached, as well as fear and the possibility of rejection, and God forbid, damnation. When I began to realize after about eight years of devout meditation that I was beginning to feel worse instead of better than when I had begun, and when I began to feel like an outsider from the rest of society and began to wonder "Why do I have to make such a effort to be alive, to be happy, to be deserving of blessings? Everyone else seems to have their "Shit" (for the lack of a better word) "Together". They seem to be managing to deal with their issues without this so called special protection that Maharaji claims to bestow upon those who completely surrender to him." His talk about the illusions of life...the only illusion I can recognize right now is the illusion of Knowledge.

I officially stopped practicing knowledge about three months ago, completely. Today, I put away the four photographs of Maharaji that I had framed and strategically placed throughout my house. Having had the good fortune to visit your site again yesterday, (I had looked at the site over two years ago, but then felt guilty for even having allowed myself to partake in such a sacrilegious act of impurity). I find it quite dramatic and somewhat comical how my imagination can lead me to such unfounded paranoia at times. In any event, little by little, I too began questioning more and more the fruits of my labor and the actual benefits from M. and K. The last few programs I attended began to plant the seeds leading me to question my own sanity. "How can I continue to be supportive of such a greedy bunch? All these fakers, these brave souls (premies) trying to keep the front for Maharaji were not getting any better, they were looking more and more lost and desperate, especially in regards to his approval or benedictions." He was beginning to personify an aura of just another entertainer with a good marketing management team that knows how to play with people's insecurities. As far as I could see there was definitely an hierarchy thing going on with the money department. Although I never went to Australia, I did see a video from his 1998 or 1999 event. I found it somewhat distasteful, (although I quickly suppressed that unkind thought) that his family and his daughter were being glorified in such a manner. They are not royalty or rock stars or movie stars, although I was beginning to think that they were beginning to think they were.

Also, I was beginning to feel somewhat ripped off about the whole experience and the way my life was getting worse instead of better. Little by little I stopped going to videos or viewing videos in my own home. I lost contact with most premies that I had known from the past, except for one dear soul whose name I will not mention. Anyway, to make a very long story short, and with my long winded and long winding style of expressing myself, not only in the written word, but artisticly and verbally as well, I will summarize the key points of my personal revelations, inspirations and realizations up to this point in my 50 years of life.

The meaning of GIFT, according to the dictionary and the encyclopedia are as follows:

A gift is given freely. There has to be a willing donor and recipient.
The giver must have the right to give it freely. The gift must be deliverable.

Many so called gifts in our modern world are not gifts. They have obligations attached to them. As in the case of so many false advertisements that use a so called gift as a bait to lure you in. To me, Maharaji and his organization, as well as many other modern developments of our presently evolving civilization, use this "Gift" business purely as a marketing and manipulation tool. I have come to the conclusion that God bestows every gift upon us and there are no strings attached. Maharaji takes the credit for all your Good Fortune and regards your suffering as your creation... for not giving back enough to the whole K & M business. God (or whoever one wishes to call that divine spark) as far as I have observed and contemplated so far, takes no credit for our accomplishments. He/she/it leaves us the privilege of our own rewards for giving ourselves credit for our own faith and sincere effort(s). He does not claim our hearts or brains or pocketbook or assets. He encourages doubts and questions and investigations and explorations, because he does not have to defend the Truth. And Maharaji takes God's message and claims it as his own and he seems to want to lay claims on the souls of his premies. His gift has many strings attached. His gifts are far from free.

They are more like enslavement.

I believe that most premies are probably the sincerest, sweetest souls out there. Maharaji and his crew seem to know how to get to these beautiful souls and twist their identity, their divine right heritage into something that he makes you believe he is responsible for. "you've got to be kidding!" It seems to be like grand theft and deception on a massive scale.

My soul belongs to me. My soul belongs to God. My soul cannot be bought, bargained for, or stolen. My heart wants to feel real love. True Love between a man and a woman, not Maharaji's Love because he can't be there for me when I really need someone physically to hold me and love me and be there for me as I am for them. Maharaji seems to claim he is responsible for what we experience, and that experience ultimately comes from and belongs to him. I do not need any special privileges of protection from the big bad illusory world. I like the world, the one I can remember before I started doubting myself, and making myself believe that cruelty was permissable if it was justifiable, for example "You've got to be cruel to be kind" sometimes. I no longer buy into this form of unworthiness syndrome. God's law is Love, Love, and more Love and compassion and understanding and charity and kindness, free from some snub false sense of superiority to those in need. Not the satisfying of an unquenchable greed that many who acquire a position of power often fall prey to.

Although I feel this way today, I will not negate the fact that I did experience many beautiful sensations and a feeling of specialness and bliss when I did believe that Maharaji really loved me. But these were my experiences because I was in love with an actual physical man and because he could not/would not accept the simplicity and naivety of my true love, I somehow allowed myself to be believe that this Maharaji Love was best. Anyway, I make no excuses or apologies. I did what I did because I sincerely felt that was the right way at that time. Now that I have come through the journey K & M could no longer carry me through, I am feeling reborn. My eyes are beginning to see again. And I say Thank You, God, and thank you too Maharaji and all those whom I have explored, or thought I adored. I thank God, especially for having given me the curiosity, the courage, the spunk to believe in my own voices, my own worthiness. I feel that God has carried me through it all, never judging, just allowing me to know and always catching me and looking out for me in all and through all.

Peace and Blessing to all.

Love, Grace

I was surprised and delighted to receive your e-mail today. Thank You. I felt a little apprehensive after I sent you my journey entry. It took me a while to muster up the courage to allow myself to be that spunky and fearless person that was no longer afraid of being punished or unapproved of for being somewhat rebellious. There is one word, however, that I was not aware I had written. In the third paragragh, near the end: " longwided and longwinding..the word ANTISOCIAL is supposed to be ARTISTIC. When I read it I thought "well, it could apply, but it is not what I meant to write". If you are able to make this correction, I would appreciate it because I am an artist. God has been very generous to me and I am most grateful for this talent that has always come naturally, and which in fact was alwasy my highest and deepest connection to the sublime. Of course, I went back to the site immediately and lo and behold I saw my name at the bottom of column one. I clicked on it, and I was quite relieved that what I felt and wrote yesterday still applies today. I can not deny that I am still somewhat on shakey ground. I continued to read more entries, and with each one, I realized that although I did not experience the ashram life or any of that kissing M's feet, which by the way, I considered sacriligeous to God, my Creator, who led me to knowledge. I could never wholeheartedly accept that M was my master, let alone a God. I always made myself believe that it was some premies who had decided to give him that title. When I realized this was what he had led them to believe, my faith in him began to dwindle with each event I attended. But then, I would think to myself, "What if he really is God?, and I am not enlightened enough to recognize him." Scary stuff!

Once again, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to express that which has been a source of profound perplexity in my life for quite soome time now. I feel somewhat cleansed, as if I have been to a confessional. I was brought up a Roman Catholic. Although I have immersed myself in many different ideologies and philosophies, I think I will always be a Catholic at heart, although I do not practice, nor have practiced this Religion for more than 30 years. I'm not really sure what I believe in except that I believe that God Loves me exactly as I am. We are all worthy. Some of us just behave better than other sometimes.

Love, Grace

Kerry Gray

My exit away from Maharaji, knowledge and EV was a gradual process. It's only recently, finally, that am I processing the transition. I thank those longer-term premies who seem to have taken the ex-press route out.

I received knowledge in 1975, a teenager. I was a service, satsang and meditation (SSM) twice a day type of premie until 1979, then I was a party hard and experience life type premie until 1983, then basically I bailed out of SSM (accept for emergency doses of meditation) but still went to see M. when he came to Australia. By 1997 I well and truly had to ask myself who I was kidding - I couldn't really call myself a premie. It was over.

Ironically it was a rare business encounter with a staunch premie where I learned of "the anti Maharaj ji website". He seemed upset. Who cares I thought, it's past history. Funny how the brain works – that wonderful human curiosity. A few months ago I found EPO.

Well I've really gone through a wide range of emotions, feelings and thoughts - that surprised me at first. I've had quite a few years to be philosophical about my involvement, so it's easy to say I don't have any real regrets about my time spent as a premie. It was fun, educational. I made friends and idols. Knowledge had been my catalyst to looking inward.

I was nearly going to say Knowledge helped me keep an open mind and heart, as well as an ability to reflect and learn from reflection, but that just isn't true. It was walking away from Knowledge that opened my mind and heart, all I had in the end was my ability to reflect and learn from reflection. Thinking has been good for me. Creative inspiration is better than meditation. I began to grow when I stopped practising Knowledge.

What does it all mean” What about all those moments of deep profundity – was it all an illusion? Some things seemed real. I saw light, the boing-buzz sound inside my head, drifted off on my breath, and tasted nectar. I don't really know what that was all about. I wanted it to be life changing, enlightening. It was I suppose, but not according to M's plan.

EPO's article describing the process of 'coming to Knowledge' fits me well. I wanted the privelege of being initiated into the mystery. I moved into an AMP house! I did service. I was so sincere. After about 6 months I went to a 'Kn.session' and yes it was 'amazing' but in hindsight perhaps I was so keyed up that even a fart would have been nectar. I remember though, that first night when I sat down to meditate all by myself, I was thinking, 'this is subtle, oh boy I'm in big trouble'. It was scary but the long months of aspirant preparation for the 'mind' backlash saw me through. Even if I wasn't good at meditation there was devotion, so I moved into the Ashram.

The innocent new premie phase ended. Virginity gone.

Many things don't sit comfortably with me, didn't back then. I saw and experienced mounds of bullshit in DLM/EV. To be honest a part of me doesn't want to look at it. Why? Because I imbibed and regurgitated that same shite. While living in the ashram I did full-time service in DLM's national headquarters. Nice people maybe, but ... it was a trip - pretty hard not to have a 'smug' mind and ego some of the time. Toward the end of this period 'bad' Bob M. jumped ship. It had a strange impact in Australia. The ashrams closed down. All the 'closet' behaviour came out in the open. Wow! I felt thrilled that maybe some 'real' honesty would occur.

This somewhat chaotic, experimental period eventually resettled in the previous course with ashrams, an even more impenetrable organisational and/or devotional sophistication, and a fresh regrouping of honchos and plebs. I was disappointed. It just occurs to me now that it must have looked as though I was displaying sour grapes syndrome when I disappeared into the fringes.

It's hard to admit that I operated from 'believing that I knew', because I credited any of my insights to Kn. Now realise how I short-changed myself and all the other wonderful non-premies that shared their innate sense of wisdom, love and compassion with me.

The following list represents my confusion that resulted from my involvement in DLM/EV. This includes aspects of Maharaji's oganisation and his methods of indoctrination that I could not reconcile either as a young premie or now.

- the DLM heirarchy, judgements, hypocrisy

Lastly these things are true for me. The ‘veges' did NOT rot. I have been working on my self-worth for a long time. I am doing more than OK.

Gregg
Like many of us, I used to take drugs, and I used to think it was a spiritual thing. Then, also like many of us, I grew tired of drugs and spent the Seventies more or less sober. I fancied myself a spiritual adventurer, moving from the mind-fuck spirituality of Castaneda's Don Juan to the otherworldly austerity of Zen. (Since I was a college student, I threw things like surrealism, structuralism, and free jazz into the mix.)

Then my friend Seth, from White Plains, went to India to see his guru. When Seth returned, he started teaching yoga. Yoga made me feel good. The physicality of spirituality. Moving shakti.

Then Seth went to India again (I don't know his guru's name), and when he came back this time, he started doing these trippy things with his energy. Walking down the sidewalk with him was like being on acid. One time I was playing hide-and-seek with him in a crowded municipal sweimming pool in Richmond, Indiana, and when I looked for him, every face in the pool, including the kids' wading pool, was Seth's face.

Then Seth left again, and when he returned, he had one thing to say to me: "Guru Maharaj Ji." I was aghast. My friend and teacher Seth, master of all things psychic and spiritual, had fallen into the clutches of a patent fraud, a greasy-haired charlatan, a kid! (It was a truism among those who condidered ourselves connoisseurs of the spiritual that Guru Maharaj Ji was to true spirituality what Liberace was to classical piano music.)

Well, you know how this is going to turn out. This is the ex-premie site, after all. I eventually accepted the possibility of my "mind" not having all the answers; I accepted the possibility of things not being what they seem, especially in the realm of the spiritual; I made my first stupid little step into the simplistic intellect-denying common sense-scorning guru-worshipping blissfully ignorant world of the smiling premies. I went to satsang.

My first satsang was in the basement of an Indianapolis ashram. Everybody was buzzing with the latest news: Mata Ji (Mata who?) had attempted to see Guru Maharaj Ji; Guru Maharaj Ji had called the cops. This was in the fall of 1974. Then it was weekly satsang -- check your Earth shoes and your critical faculties at the door. But it wasn't all bad, now, was it?

For me, raised in a very analytical and somewhat emotionally stunted family, having a God in human form was refreshingly juicy. It was miles away from home, which is where young rebels want to be, n'est-ce pas? It felt like what I needed: the hugs, the frisson of the new and strange, the bhakti buzz. Yes, we know all the negatives -- the dysfunctional dynamics of involvement with a cult, the fact that our Dispeller of Darkness was a confused young man (not a good thing in a guru), etc. -- but good things happened, even if we mistakenly thought they came from Mr. Rawat.

On January 19, 1975, I sat in an inner city gym in Cincinnati, where a bunch of black martial artist premies were giving a particularly vicious karate demonstration under the loving eyes of a middle-aged East Indian woman, one of the Guru's initiators. Her name escapes me. The next morning she revealed the Techniques to me and about twenty others.

My experience of Light was pretty cosmic, a fact which I would bring up to myself frequently during arguments between the Inner Devotee and the Inner Skeptic. Oh well. At least it wasn't the Moonies. Or the Scientologists. Or the Mormons. Or Amway.

The years rolled by in typical premie fashion. Propping up a state of bliss by monitoring my inner dialogue, ever vigilant for signs of the "mind." ("Mind" being a mistranslation/distortion of a Hindu concept, used to demonize all non-DLM thoughts and feelings.) Since I lived in small premie communities (Bloomington, IN and Grand Rapids, MI), institutional fanaticism was minimal, the satsang was pretty friendly, and I seldom got the feeling I was hanging out with spiritual Nazis. After all, the dogma promulgated by Goom Rahzhee and his followers was pretty basic. Not a long list of rules and regs.

Although this simplicity of doctrine was also part of what was to sour me on the whole thing eventually. I was to somewhat belatedly realize that there were a lot of issues that were key to spiritual transformation that were swept under the rug. Or stomped on. It was all "the mind," you know.

After a few years of this, guess what: I was still not "enlightened." I suppose I expected, from reading various books, that when one took a guru and meditated, one's consciousness became transformed, one became wiser and more loving, more peaceful. Well, it wasn't happening. I was the same old somewhat confused and somewhat happy person I'd always been, although I'd logged a few more "spiritual" experiences onto my Akashic resume. I'd been to a dozen festivals and hundreds of satsangs and spent countless hours propped up on my polished walnut barragon. But where was the upward curve, the falling away of gross perceptions to reveal the transcendent reality of unfiltered awareness?

The logical thing to do would have been to get off the DLM treadmill. But logic wasn't my strong suit back then. Instead, I moved to Denver and joined the ashram. This has gotta be it, I told myself. Commit myself wholeheartedly to my enlightenment (quite a selfish sentiment, looking back on it through Mahayana eyes), to the exclusion of all other wordly dreams. (Ohe yeah, it's coming back to me now -- it wasn't just "the mind," it was also "the world." Man!)

So, yeah, I enlisted. I stopped everything except satsang, service, meditation, and my low-commitment day job (substitute teaching). I even stopped playing the piano. I became the "house father" (the guy who responds to requests like, "Jai Sat Chit Anand. Can I have some money for a pair of socks?"), in an ashram that included some leftover International Headquarters premies, which meant that I got to do darshan service at the next festival. But was my spirit soaring now that I had loosed my earthly ties? Nope.

One night I was taking a walk in the ashram neighborhood and a thought struck me like a cartoon frying pan: I could leave! I could, you know, just leave! Rent a room somewhere; start over! So I did. I thought I'd have a hard time adjusting to life in the real world again, but it wasn't bad at all. I went to a therapist to help deal with some of those swept-under-the-rug issues. That helped. Then the post-premie years started rolling by. Good years, bad years, wasted year, blessed years...

Now I am forty-six years old. I am married, with a seven-year old child who is endlessly entertaining and endlessly entertained by life as it is. (As we should all be.) I have a great job teaching at an arts school, I have a play being produced this fall. And I have learned the kind of lessons that most of us learn as we approach the final curtain. So I am happy. Oldsters live with regret, too, as do I, but, strangely, I don't regret those foolish premie years.

Oh...and I have a guru now. I've studied with him off and on for ten or fifteen years. A teacher, not an idol to worship. He does not profer his stockinged feet for me to kiss; we hug like friends. He does not avoid the hard questions; he has spent his life grappling wih them and offers new ways to look at these questions. He provides a link to living spiritual traditions that have helped me to shed my many neuroses and open to the living moment.

I believe we all need to grow and to learn, and I believe there are many beings, schools, and books which can help us. And after giving myself up to the dysfunctional pleasures of the cultic womb for four years, once upon a time, I know that that can never happen to me again. I've been innoculated. Let the rains of grace fall down from the heavens to cleanse us all!

At the time of my first awareness of DLM, I was strung out on speed and walking down Madison Avenue in Toronto. There was a very attractive girl handing out leaflets and I took one and in the hopes of meeting her again (my weakness for women and the prospect of physical and emotional love figure prominently in my whole mystical experience with the DLM), went to the house (Ashram) listed on the cover. Satsang was good. The devotees were good. The cause (enlightenment) was good. Being a speed freak was bad. I was totally fucked up.

There was a programme the next evening at Jarvis Collegiate where a really nice and erudite Mahatma was speaking of Knowledge. He was an older gentleman; his enthusiasim and presence on the stage as well as his message captivated me. He was really devoted.

I received K a few days later after an all day session without food or break. Totally brainwashed! It was cool. I had new found friends with a common thread among us. I never did speed again. I stopped smoking, cut my hair, ate nothing but tofu. I was a classic case of total mind, body and soul deprivation. I t was cool.

Living in the Ashram was great! I developed a lot of insight into my new found spirituality. Meditation was not that awe-inspiring, it was mostly sleeping sitting up. I was the most selfless and devoted premmie you would ever meet - but horny. I used to meditate for women, and sure enough, the Guru would supply me with women, in the Ashram and out. It was too much! I flung myself into devotion and selflessness and sampled my Sisters with devotional abandonment.

Mahatmas would come and go through Toronto. Then Mata Ji came to town. She was great too. I booked the flight to India on the Jumbo Jets. By the time I had left New York, I was down to $15.00, the rest having been cajoled out of me by DLM operatives. So I arrived in Delhi with $15.00 to my name. We were there for about a month and I was able to buy presents for my whole family with that $15.00.

India was great! I became a fascist. I joined the World Peace Corps. I was one of GM's security guards. I manned the gates (of heaven?) at the Hardwar Ashram. I guarded the stairs up to his personal dwelling on the roof of the Ashram. It was amazing! People would come to me begging to go upstairs to see GM, but I wouldn't let them go. Only the chicks! I would let the chicks go and watch them walk up the stairs to GM's digs. The sisters didn't wear underwear.

I was totally out of control. Guru Maharaji was operating me. I was just a shell. It was like I, me was not there. Actually, I was there, but only watching. I was watching I, but I was being run by the Guru. We used to build fires at night outside the compound, and roast potatoes in the hot sand. I found a rope and hung it in a tree by the Ganges so that you could swing way out and jump or dive into the river, and then float down stream to the town. I used to brush my teeth in the river. It was no wonder I ended up with dysentry.

GM filled me with awe. His presence had the power of an electrical current. HE WAS GOD! He was God because I wanted him to be God. Everything that happened, revolved around Him and His will. It was a cult of "Wishing (meditating) made it so" It was remarkable and Miraculous, I was in heaven!

We had a circus. A bunch of premmies fashioned animal costumes from bits and pieces of material found around the Ashram. I fashioned a gorrilla outfit from coconut husks sewn to my jeans and shirt. When the circus began, we were performing for Mata Ji, I rushed out into the audience and picked up a sister over my shoulder and ran around with her kicking and screaming, just as if I were a real gorrilla and she were really frightened. Mata Ji loved it and beckoned me to her throne. I went there as a gorrilla but as I approached I suddenly fell to the floor in prostration. Even Mata Ji was divine, the whole family was divine.

We went back to our respective homes on the Jumbos. While I was involved with DLM, I attended much Darshan in very many places, including: India, London, New England, Chicago and Detroit. My journey through Michigan took me to a commune (but that's another story). I met and enjoyed sexually many women compliments of GM or so I thought (I knew we were supposed to be celibate but I was weak and the sisters were hot-to-trot, there's nothing like a stint of abstinance to get the juices flowing).

Finally, I met a sister, Janice from London, England, who stole my heart away. I couldn't get enough of her. I went to London and Chicago with her. She and I visited her ex-squeeze at the mental hospital in Toronto, he too was a premmie and it seemed that she befriended a whole lot of male premmies in her travels, leaving a wake of broken hearts in her path. I was just the next. I was deviststed when she went off with another premmie. (Apparently she also broke the heart of the infamous Milko or Milky, one of the DVM movers and shakers from London, possibly one of the brains of the organization). I quit DLM shortly after that, having been involved for a couple of years.

This is the first thought of or contact with anything resembling DLM since then. I have no regrets! I chalk it all up as experience. I think that if you believe in anything with your whole being, and devote your whole waking and sleeping existance to that belief, it will become real and that will become your realization. So Guru Mahara Ji became the focus of thousands of perhaps fringe or emotionally challenged people who used him for their own personal God. His handlers used him to acquire great wealth. And the Guru used us for his personal gain. Unfortunately, some people may have been hurt, but take heart, were still hanging in there.

Jaisatchitanand (Oh!Oh!)

Leave message if this reminiscence strikes a chord


Update - April 2, 2004

Hey! It's me again. 30 years since I was a Premmie in Toronto. Life's been good. I have a most dear and loving wife, one boy, 3 girls, 1 dog and 3 birds. Everybody's healthy (I just touched wood).

Reading some of the comments from disaffected DLM groupies has reminded me of some more experiences enjoyed on various road trips for darshan.

One memorable tip was to Chicago (1972?) for darshan with Mata Ji. I recall her staying at a hotel called, "The Heart of Chicago", which to us devotees was oh so appropos.

I was with my squeeze at that time, Janice Cook, a devottee(?) from London who apparently was quite familiar with some of the European movers and shakers of the DLM, most notably, Milky Cole.

I met Janice in Toronto; she was one of a string of sisters with whom GM provided me to fulfill the lust and desire commensurate with the cyclical bouts of sexual abstinence that inevitably led to an insatiable horniness. I fondly remember one instance at our flat near the Toronto ashram. Janice was standing with one leg up on the bathtub, ready to climb in, and as I passed by, I entered her very nicely and we finished off in that pose ... .

But I digress. So here we were in Chicago, in a large hall, where the massed premmies ate and slept while we awaited our darshan with Mata Ji.

To amuse ourselves, we played games and "stayed on the word". I had a watergun with which I was squirting the sisters and I remember one particular sister being annoyed and threatening me with, "GM's going to get you for this".

I recall it being a sunny day, perhaps with scattered sun-showers. A few of us went out for a drive to see the sights of Chicago and I was sitting in the back seat next to an open window 'cause the weather was beauty. The next thing I know, as we were driving along, a car approached from the opposite direction, passing through the only puddle on the road and dumps a wall of water on me through the open window, soaking me to the skin.

Well, as they say, the lord works in mysterious ways, and it was quite a co-incidence and we were screaming and laughing and knowing that we were the victim of GM's lila.

The darshan was nice with Mata Ji. At one point during the programme, someone stood up and wailed away on a trumpet that went on and on, seemingly at Mata Ji's tacit will. It was a good time had by all.

I'm a confirmed atheist; however, I believe in an energy that sustains the universe by means of physical and natural laws. This is not an anthropomorphic energy; it has no human characteristics. It is neither jealous nor tyranical; it is benign and destructive; it is non-judgemental; it requires neither me nor I it; it is amoral; IT IS!!!

GM may or may not be the Lord of the Universe. It matters not; it's all in what you choose to believe. Of my time with DLM, I chose to believe in GM's providence which in fact proved to be all-sustaining. At times I was unemployed and the DLM provided me with sustenance. At times I was libidinous and the DLM provided me with an outlet for my sexual anxiousness. It was and is a perfect world.

From reading about some other persons' experience with the DLM, I get the impression their expectations outreached their needs and their dependance on GM became a millstone.

GM's OK in my books. He's just a guy that enjoys the finer things in life and you whiners (if I can be so blunt) helped sustain him in his depravity.

I was hurt when Janice moved on to her next conquest, but as it turned out, it provided me with the opportunity to move on to my next stage of life, and here I am, 30 years later. (You can read of my exploits on the Jumbos to India in a previous posting).

Regards

Dave

Apparently I needed to surrender my mind and ego and I recall not being sure that I had an ego to surrender. Maybe it wasn't developed enough at 17 to really know what the hell it was.

I soon dropped away from the premie scene as it seemed my hippy attire should be exchanged for a suit from a divine jumble sale, my hair cut short and I should find my joy in life by raising money collecting old clothes door to door.

In 1975 I bought some dope from a rather cool dealer who people later told me was a "premie". I said Jai Sat Chit Anand the next time I saw him and we became friends. He reminded me that I'd received the ultimate "Knowledge" and that combined with a chillum of Nepalese hash it could get me very high.

1976 in Leicester, England, I was recommended to go through something called darshan where you lay your head at Maha's feet. Why would anyone do that I asked; because you'll get a blast and feel high I was told - into the line I went.

I got serious about it all in the late 70's and stopped all my drug use, dressed like a jerk, and went to satsang seven nights a week. I also kissed Maharaji's feet many times. Apparently the ultimate dedication was to join an ashram (5 to 10 guys living in a house together, meditating lots, sleeping little, eating a vegetarian diet, giving their pay cheques to someone called a treasurer who did whatever with it and more importantly all being in love with the same man. Moroever, a man they'd never met!

Eventually worked my way up the ladder to hold minor positions within the organisation, ashram co-ordinator, community co-ordinator, aspirant co-ordinator; Then on to the heights of working full time in M's office in the UK. Smart suits, nice cars, great houses to live in complete with cooks and housekeepers, serious premies with little humour, elitist structures, snobbism towards "ordinary premies".

Called a friend one night and asked him to drive down and rescue me. Felt great driving into the night with him and my suitcase! Remained dedicated until the end of 1991 when the boredom of watching endless videos in crappy hotel rooms drove me away. I still called myself a premie though and upon getting my first computer in 1999 found the expremie site. I went on to the forum to give my defense of Maharaji and yet listening to the arguments so rationally put to me and not without fighting I succumbed to the logic of the situation, it had all been a beautiful dream - an illusion. I'd been in a cult for 28 yrs and was no more enlightened than anyone else.

I did have some great times and of course there were states of joy. I now realise that these states were no different than those anyone in extreme fundamentalist religion or cults experience.

Upon leaving in 2000 I experienced many emotions. Confusion, anger, low self esteem. I tried to cling on to my "spirituality" still giving validity to those blissful states as being something worthwhile.

Life is great now and my love comes from the simple interaction between myself and others. A wonderful relationship, great kids. I feel sad that I didn't continue my education due to the indoctrination of the cult and that financially I've always struggled to support my family due to lack of skills or profession, but I'm now at 48 studying to become an English teacher in Paris France. I hope my sons don't fall into any type of cult.

This is such a shallow version of my journey and I have said so much more about my experiences on the forums.

I look at the premie scene now and see a rather sad group of mainly middle aged people who are frightened to wake up and see what it really is; a personality cult, enriching a rich man and his family.

I guess this cult will carry on in a small way as there are always desperate dreamers and losers in life to feed from. Thanks to the ex-premies for helping me to exit. I hate to think that I could still be there lost in the illusion that 4 techniques of meditation could give me anything extraordinary.

Hal (2003)

Hamzen
Let's face it -- we were ALL involved in self-deception. You had to be to stay involved. But for me, I think idealism made it easier to do that.

I would like to dedicate this to Jethro Cadbury, the one real premie friendship of mine that has lasted over the decades, for me he is mr constant in his search for truth and his committment to the intensity and quality of the moment. So heart warming to see you continuing your journey outside of the cult Jed. And for introducing me to ex-premie.org and the quirky culture surrounding it.I would also like to thank those involved in this site's production and continuance, but especially Jean-Michel for describing the historical circumstances that the cult was born in, and from which Shri Hans and gm stole so much, and lyingly sold as uniquely their own.

The first part of this journey was a post I put up on the ex-premie forum, in a thread about the part of lila and the naivete, of my self and all the premies, in our involvement with der guru. A synopsis of my whole time around gm/k/dlm/ev is after that post.

The reason this post is the lead part of my journey is that I'm certain that the whole fake edifice that gm constructed, would have blown apart like a pack of cards in the wind without the lila concept, it was the binder for everything. Our hippy naivete and intellectual laziness, the 'it's all about feelings man' anti-analysis strand of the sixties, which was so disastrous, was the main reason we wasted SO much of our lives on or around a really third rate scoundrel. No wonder the punk/traveller scene happened.

I have made some minor grammatical changes, and expanded some parts of the post that weren't entirely clear before, but in essence this post is the same as before.

'The self-deception of ashramees that I was referring to here was relating to satsang. Except for a very short period around the time I "got" k, the only contact I had with anything official was at satsang. At satsang it was painfully obvious that people were being dishonest to a large degree. My idealism related to knowlege, gm was very much secondary. Satsang, I took to be, should be interpreted literally, as the company of truth. The company of truth I took to be emotional honesty, as well as an expression of the deepest spiritual experience, all connected to the 'one love' underlying reality.

Most ashram based satsangs left me feeling very sad and emotionally distraught. I could not understand why, if people were having this experience the same as me, they were playing power games, lying and trying to project what "should" be said, rather than expressing an honest description of their realities.

In community satsangs, which could be very dour and depressing, at least people tended to be more honest about their experiences, even if in the majority of instances they were describing their lack of experiences and the difficulties they were having with living.

The one period that I exempt from this description was 76-77 when suddenly everyone started to talk honestly. I loved that period. But the fact that it lasted for such a short period of time, and obviously was stopped by gm, not the premies, started to make me doubt his intentions or abilities. Before then I thought he was just shy & naive on one level, if a bit abusive at times, and completely absolved him of responsibility for all the craziness.

It did lead to one major problem for me regarding m. As with all of us, we could only justify the chaos and m's uselessness by resorting to the concept of lila. But for a number of us who were outside of the org, having strong meditation experiences, we had to resort to using a second-order lila concept. Not only was there some cosmic lila going on, but even within his followers there was another lila, how else could I justify to myself the obvious lack of experience of that one love reality that his followers, the very people who should embody the power of knowledge, were stuck in.

So I justified to myself that shramers were obviously in the ashrams because they needed protecting. The problems this justification caused for me in terms of spiritual arrogance is frightening, especially when mixed in with my strong meditation experiences. I know a number of people who took the same stance. I assumed everyone involved saw this whole planet as a sick joke. If there was a god, a concept I always had difficulties grasping, or if there was any kind of consciousness in some cosmic ground, it could only allow the continual suffering of the human race throughout all history because there was something that took precedence over that suffering, however hard I found this.

But the biggest black joke for me was that the one person who probably had an answer/solution to this, was running something that was producing farcical results. And the closer those people were to that person the more fucked up they appeared to be. Yet here I was having at last found a way to access the experiences and feeling of connectedness to a love that was irrestible through meditating, that I had also experienced on acid, and had been searching for for over three years. So I saw the claims for k that gm was making, as justified, even though everything else around him appeared to negate this.

The only way I could rationalize it was that the org existed as a place of protection for people unable to cope in the real world, and that was why gm had set them up. The organizational chaos I rationalized by thinking that it was an irrelevance in some greater long-term lila, the purpose of which I had no understanding of. Obviously people were not experiencing knowledge, so they were not ready for that experience yet. That is where the spiritual arrogance manifested for me.

But this was in essence, no different to the attitude that acid-taking grateful dead followers had already reached long before gm turned up. That was why the rumours spread about everyone who was at the '71 glastonbury festival. GM gave satsang at the festival to the core group of british acid head hippies.

After 'receiving' knowledge I was told this rumour, that everyone who was there was supposedly going to receive knowledge, and they were like some form of divine illuminati, which is how we were able to stay in meditation when gm was giving satsang, and would only hear, and be moved, by the higher level message behind the main message of guru sell. Not difficult really, because over a period of time gm would cover just about any spiritual viewpoint and angle, many of which were quite often in conflict. The only way I could see to deal with that, was by letting my own feelings guide me through to those bits I was supposed to be hearing, the deep stuff , and avoid the guru sell agya part of his message.

Thanks for pulling this out of me & aplogies for it being so long. Think it is the first time I've ever verbalized it to anyone who did not see things in a similar way. I hope also that my comments are not seen as an attack on ex-ashramees. I do not blame them in the least now, think we know who I feel is responsible for the whole house of cards.

Everyones route in was very different. That is one of the reasons I've been astonished by the background details and the understanding of the reasons and pressures why people were the way they were then. When you see the quality of the people here, and know that the people I had problems back then with, were from similar backgrounds, there is only one door that bears responsibility for all the damage.'

My Journey Around GM/K by dates.

1970 - first take acid and am blown away by my experience of a reality behind this normal reality, which was coherently connected by a love that was universal.

When in that experience/space, and I was either there or not, everything made total sense in terms of the true meaning and purpose of life, and when in those experiences I felt wonderful. My body felt connected and alive, sensitive to the moment in exactly the way those sportsmen describe when they are 'in the zone'.

This was best described in certain songs by the Grateful Dead, The Incredible String Band, Mighty Baby etc, a hidden world that hardly anyone knew was there.

But over the next two years my mind got stretched too far and I was in danger of losing it. I stopped taking acid, and was no longer able to access that experience.

My search began. That experience was the only thing that made any sense to me, everything else about the human race seemed completely fucked, and it was totally obvious to me that we would destroy this planet unless there was an absolutely TOTAL change of consciousness in the human race.

So my search was on, to enable me to re-connect to that orgasmic oneness experience, and to do my bit to save this planet.

I was alienated from the mainstream religions, apart from Buddhism, but I could not find anywhere in Buddhism that would give me a good chance to get to this experience fast, they were talking lifetimes, if ever, apart from zen buddhism and I didn't like the official zen routes I came across.

I wanted this experience, and I wanted it NOW, and I was not prepared to go the shamanic route and start taking drugs again, however sacred the context.

So I started checking out gurus, spiritual orgs and humanistic psychology where it was related to ecstatic experiences, the only places where that kind of ecstatic bliss was talked about.

The best way of tracking down that experience for myself seemed to be to find people following a route or practice who did have that experience. Naive hippy that I was, I was Essex boy enough to know that lots of people say they are having similar cosmic experiences to what I was after, but could be lying/fooling themselves or might be on the wrong route for me to access it.

So in all the groups I encountered I grilled people incessantly while avoiding the hard sell like the plague.

I finally met someone who I felt was having these experiences, we spent months going for very long walks where I grilled her about her experience.

I had met premies before but they obviously were nowhere near what I was after, and their guru was obviously a fraud, I spent ages trying to dissuade a friend that the boy guru was obviously a fraud and that she was just spouting words, but of all things her mother became involved, and she was having the genuine article, I believed, after my months of grilling her.

Once I felt I would also be able to access that experience, I was going for it totally, everything else, career, partners etc were a complete irrelevance.

The guru existed solely as the route to me getting k. The guru route itself I felt was another number, and not mine. Because this person was getting the mainstay of her experience from meditation, the guru seemed to me to exist solely to help people meditate better, especially when they were having problems letting go to that experience because of ego blocks, fear etc.

While on thr route to k, I remember that I always refused to ask for k, the mahatmas seemed to use that as a way of disempowering people, and with the background of self-worth my mother had instilled in me, I refused to be party to any such game. I used to go to the aspirant meetings regularly and one day found myself on a knowledge session without having to beg for it. We went to the room for k at the Palace of Peace after satsang one evening, at about 10 o'clock at night. By 3 in the morning the k session still hadn't started, some kind of mind game tester was going on. Around 5am it started.

I remember going home on the underground during the rush hour and their was a distinct feeling that something had shifted in my head, like a chemical change. Neither during the session nor after did I have any cosmic experiences.

For the first six months I had great difficulty meditating, I couldn't do more than five or ten minutes, my thoughts were all over the place. I decided to discipline myself by trying to sit for one minute longer on the bad days, and hoped I could build up my time meditating over the months. After six months or so, and even though I was still not having any grand experiences, except once with 'music', I did feel different in myself, not massively, but noticeable enough to me.

I felt confident that I was starting to move towards 'that space'.

Within the year I was comfortably doing half hour sessions morning and night, and sometimes during the day, while practicing holy name, a warm glowy feeling would kick in.

After a year something was happening with the light technique. My experiences were getting a bit 'zappy'.

With nectar I felt my ability to focus/concentrate on things in general was being affected gently. I was getting no nectar, but occasionally a sweet taste was there, no big deal, but better than pleasant, again like a gentle warm glow, but that was only occasional.

Music was not really happening at all, I got plenty of background noise type sounds except for once which was mind blowing. The background noises sounded like random brain stuff to me & were an irrelevance, the day I experienced that note was very different.

This happened very early after 'getting' k. From nowhere this note kicked in which definitely gave me a good feeling, and the more I went into this, the feeling increased. Suddenly, and I saw this visually as well, ( which was like a sine wave), I suddenly felt like a magnifying glass, and as I did I saw that the note wasn't one note. but many notes joined together. I kept slipping into different layers where each note was composed of other notes, it was very much like a fractal pattern in its structure and the way you could go into it. As I heard these many notes, I had this feeling like an electric surge go through my whole body. I reached a point where this experience was so intense I could no longer cope with it. It suddenly stopped.

Holy name was gentle, pulsy, but nothing grand, it did feel like the binder for the group of techniques.

After about a year I felt something had shifted, and I'd gone through a barrier. This feeling of exploring a level, and then after a period of time kicking into another level, was a recurring cycle of my meditation practice. I was now meditating for an hour, no sweat. Sometimes an hour and a half, even occasional two hour sessions.

Ninety percent of my meditations were now a total pleasure, quite often verging on ecstatic. The only times that didn't happen, were when I forced myself to meditate when I didn't want to. These times only happened when I began to absorb gm/premie sales pressure to conform to some norm, even though I knew from psychology and the taoist and some zen buddhist philosophies that this would mostly be counter productive.

Light technique was so strong I no longer used the finger technique, which I had adapted anyway because of my small hands.

I now was having the experiences directly. I would experience huge energy levels, regular surges, my body would feel like I was being stretched, I was getting gorgeous feelings. I know it improved my posture.

Music I did less, but even though I was hearing nothing but background 'noise', which wasn't that attractive, I was getting milder energy surges through my head from ear to ear.

Nectar was now a good feeling, with the sweet taste there occasionally, and very occasionally this huge lump of gumph would appear in my mouth very quickly, which was nothing short of ecstatic in its effect. I never got this anywhere near as often as I wanted.

Holy name was starting to get stronger, that pulse feeling which would rise to my head when I breathed in, and go down to the bottom of my spine when I breathed out, although not stunning in it's sweetness, was having a marked effect on my overall body feeling in a general way. Outside of the four technique formal meditation, I was starting to practice it and nectar for long periods during the day, and the random thoughts were definitely reducing.

I was starting to feel quite tripped out most of the time. When I had powerful light surges in formal meditation, on coming back to 'normal' reality it took a while to return, but after a quarter of an hour or so chilling out, my energy levels would feel phenomenal. By a year and a half of practicing I felt stoned most of the time, and would have a day or two a week where I felt like I was tripping, it wasn't exactly the same as acid, but close, like a sister version.

Alongside all these changes I felt I was being guided by some cosmic connectedness, that I did not associate with gm.

During this period, I was not working during the first few years of getting k, meditation was my career, I was trying not to control anything, just go with the flow. During this whole period, I was going to satsang, and avoiding those places where you were pressured into giving satsang. I would occasionally gain a buzz from odd individual satsangs, usually where people were having similar experiences to myself, but in general I was having a bad time around premies, especially the social pressure to conform to some premie mentality.

I avoided official service like the plague, I wanted to do the DUO type service, going to hospitals etc, but I was having such difficulties being around premies that it never happened.

In late 75 GM gave one of those satsangs where he gets very heavy, I had great difficulty with it, thought it was very abusive, any chance of me becoming a total premie drone, which was already very slim, was lost. Although going to all the festivals in britain, I stopped going to any abroad after that satsang of his. I just focused on meditating mostly. I starting going to, and giving satsang 76-77 when honesty was suddenly on the agenda, and cut down drastically when it stopped. This carried on til 85, when everything got very strong in meditation, when some very trippy states were getting activated.

Some very weird stuff was also starting to happen then. One day I heard this screaming like some animal was being attacked. I could not tell where the sound was coming from. I rushed downstairs and into the garden. Nothing. As I came back in, the screaming noise started again. As I climbed the stairs it was so loud it was hurting my head. I opened the lounge door and the cat from downstairs, who regularly visited my partner and myself, was wapping this moth. Each time the paw hit the moth I heard this huge scream. After absorbing what was going on and stopping her, the screaming stopped.

Another time I was in a Hare Krishna restaurant with my mum, I was feeling very trippy and gorgeous. She was talking and as she talked I saw this sine wave leave her body, go across the room to where the customers were waiting to pay, and as it reached the person paying it disappeared and he dropped his tray of food on the floor, and was completely bemused as to why it had happened.

Another time I was on an underground train with a friend, I said to her 'if that cosmic consciousness wanted to shut down this section of the northern line, no problem.' Shortly after an announcement was made that this whole section of the northern line had had a power failure.

Quite often I would just say whatever felt right and blow people out because it was what they were thinking.

I could recount an endless stream of odd experiences like these, most of which I had no explanation for, and could see no point to. By 78 I was vegan, by 85 a raw food vegan. I had no doubt that this, combined with the meditation techniques, were producing major chemical changes in my body.

As for the weird experiences, I could only think by 85 that I was starting to access some quantum level of reality that by-passed normal reality modes. In the mid seventies I would have probably ascribed them to god's grace, maharaji's grace, cosmic consciousness, by 85 I knew I was generating this stuff myself. This combined with the fact that so few premies seemed to be having the experiences I was having, and their numbers were not increasing, together with my increasing doubts about the org's dlm/ev, which just seemed completely fucked up, meant I was starting to question gm's validity on a number of levels. This even in spite of the success of k for me, which I still saw as magically passed down over the ages. It was so obvious that he had no idea how to help people integrate k into their lives, the pressure stuff was so obviously bound to be counter productive and fill people with guilt.

Lila covered it for me for a long time, what did I know etc etc, and the fact that genuine humility seemed to be a clear ingredient in the quality of my experiences. Whenever I got too confident/arrogant, something major would blow up in my face.

By 87 I was hardly ever going to programs or satsang, but once I can remember getting into a debate with Irene Hall where I pointed out the org's chaos, and the counter productiveness of the pressured conformity and guilt, and her reactions were quite instructive, as were the nodding heads of the premies who agreed with me but didn't have the confidence to speak up.

By 1990, I realized that IT, the magical moment when the human race would see the light, was NEVER going to happen, at the same time my involvement in the green movement meant I fully understood about global warming and the ozone hole problem. The scientific facts that backed up what I intuitively knew would be the human destruction of the planet in 1970, when I first tripped.

I went a bit crazy, walked out on my premie marriage, stopped all involvement around gm. Thankfully at a time of great despair for me the acid house revolution was happening in Britain. A total social change. This crowd taught me so much about that total hippy naivete.

I went to one gm festival in Brighton in 93-4, where I wore my headphones playing drum&bass all the time, to block out the bogusness of premie culture. Think the reasons I went, were a mixture of the return of despair for a short while, but really, to start trying to understand what the fuck was going on in gm's head. I saw through him completely much to my amazement.

Every year for three years, I would make one visit to a community video, to see how I viewed him during a period of large changes I was making. I primarily ended up looking at the language tricks and games he played, and the revisionism he used to cover his tracks. The communities at these events were tiny, soulless, immature, very sad.

98- on the net for the first time since 1990 and Ex-Premie org, at last a chance to verbalize what I had analysed and felt about this whole charade.

In the end what can you do, once you're past the pain of it all, and unless you sink yourself into another spiritual belief system to replace it like some spiritual neurofen, but utter a whole hearted gut bucketing laugh.

Our journey around him has been nothing but a mixture of some hippy monty python sketch mixed with kafka.

Without lila, and our acceptance of it, everyone would have been with the punks, laughing at the ludicrousness of it all.

Hanna
I am not an ex-premie, but the daughter of an ex-premie.

One of my earliest memories is lying in my parents bed staring up at a framed picture of Guru Maharaji. He was sitting on a podium with flowers around his neck. He has been a looming presence throughout my entire childhood and I am now in the process of realising that this has got to have had some effect on me. I am a cult kid. Of course like any member of a cult I didnt realise this until I was old enough to be away from it. I look back at my formative years and well as being amused by all the self righteous adults that surrounded and moulded me I also feel very angry. I think premies can be very manipulative and dangerous people. They all secretly want to be a Guru too.

I was always expected to receive knowledge and even attended many aspirant meetings and international events. Funny how they always seemed to be co-ordinated with family holidays. Like we had this silent family member who didn't even know our names. My mother used to tell me stories of the Guru like fairy tales and I was definitely lulled to sleep to the songs of praise that no one seems to remember these days. 'You are my Mother, you are my Father, Oh Guru Maharaji you are everything.' Something along those lines. I remember feeling very small and a bit disposable when I heard those words. Replacable.

My Dad used to jaunt off to see his 'Teacher' and get incredibly excited but wouldn't elaborate on what he actually taught him. Sometimes he would take me to see a video and I would feel really special to stay out late with Dad, and all the premies there would smile at me and treat me like I was special. I bet that's what Maharaji felt like when he was a little boy, I thought. But then I'd sit there and and feel terribly guilty because I had doubt. I remember one teaching about a little bird who wanted to be free but he was caged. Eventually he got let out but he was still so preoccupied with the concept of being free that he couldn't actually enjoy the feeling of being free. Maharaji said that bird wasn't really free. He condemned that bird, but I quite liked him. No wonder, I thought, being in a cage all that time must be horrid. It will just take some getting used to being free that’s all. By then I'd drifted and missed the moral and felt bad. The drift was- conceptual thought is bad and feeling is good. As a result throughout my adolescence I learned to fear my own common sense and developing critical voice and then feel inferior because I hadn't experienced bliss and blame myself. I would inwardly question the Master and outwardly defend him so as not to be found out when non Divine Light people criticised. Sometimes I would pretend he didnt exist at all so that I could be a normal kid. 'Oh yeah, my Dads having a nap so we have to be quiet' to 'straight' friends that came round. I could hardly tell them he had a blanket over his head to increase his divine light experience.

My friend at school was from a family of buddhists and I just couldn't see why our God was more superior to hers. If anything I found hers more convincing because you couldn't actually see him. He didn't sit on a stage or star in his own videos or fly aeroplanes. Even at the tender age of 8 I could see that a man who was trying to save the human race and deliver peace to the world through self sacrifice, celibacy and other nonsensical ashram antics shouldn’t be flying planes on his day off. He sounded more like Rupert the bear to me. I asked Mum once, 'If he gives out his knowledge for free, then how has he got a plane?' She mumbled something about donations and then said that she thought Maharaji could do whatever he liked. I wasn't so sure but listened anyway as she told me about the time she covered his car in daisies with a proud innane grin on her face. I didn’t bother to ask why.

Friends my own age have received knowledge and joined the club and sometimes I bump into them and other old family friends that talk to me knowingly as if I'm one of them and I want to laugh. 'Can you not see? You're being had! He's playing on your insecurities and none of you are being honest about how you feel.

I have no problem with people wanting to get in touch with their inner joy, I think that meditation is a valid and useful practice, but I think the whole premie thing unnerves me.

If that which we seek is truly within ourselves then why do we have to spend our life savings on travelling thousands of miles every year to see someone who doesn’t even know we exist? If Knowledge truly is a gift then why do we have to give something in return? Surely its better to take all that love and dedication and turn it in on ourselves? That is true devotion.

Happy